Mayor Karl Dean, singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale and half-Nashville-based duo The Civil Wars attended Monday afternoon’s nominations announcement at the Gibson/Baldwin Showroom in New York City — Lauderdale and The Civil Wars sang, while Mayor Dean just talked. Levon Helm and his Dirt Farm Quartet also performed, and ex-Nashvillian Rosanne Cash read the list of nominees.

Alison Krauss doesn’t write songs, and she tends not to sing them so much as inhabit them.

But as she and her band, Union Station, worked to complete their first studio album since 2004, Krauss was finding nowhere musical to live. They began recording in September 2009, and by early 2010, they’d crept to a creative standstill. Krauss felt something along the lines of the chorus to “Lie Awake,” one of the handful of songs she and Union Station had completed:

“How do I lie awake now, when I know I’ve got to be moving on?” goes the song — penned by her brother Viktor Krauss and singer-songwriter Angel Snow — which appears on the finally completed, newly released Paper Airplane. “How do I lie awake now, when nothing’s right and nothing’s wrong?”

“Everything seemed pretty gray,” Krauss says on a sunny spring day, far removed from the winter of her disconnect, when migraine headaches further hampered the proceedings. “It was very strange, like you had no gut reaction. I couldn’t tell what was good and what was not.”Continue reading →

The two acts -- who were both up for album of the year at Sunday's Grammy awards -- are part of a star-studded, characteristically broad lineup that includes Nashville rock duo the Black Keys, reunited '60s supergroup Buffalo Springfield (in an an exclusive festival appearance), hip-hop hit maker Lil Wayne, back-in-action modern rockers the Strokes and country legend Loretta Lynn.

Ashley Capps, president of Bonnaroo co-producer AC Entertainment, says the roster was assembled with Bonnaroo’s same tried-and-true principle: "Put together a mind-blowing lineup."

“But certainly with this being the 10th year, we were looking to do two things: keep the festival fresh, exciting, edgy and contemporary, but also celebrate the Bonnaroo tradition that’s emerged over the last decade, and acknowledge a lot of the history of the festival.”

Click to see a gallery of photos from the 53rd annual Grammy Awards (this image of Lady Antebellum: Jae C. Hong/AP Photo).

LOS ANGELES - Nashville pop-country trio Lady Antebellum notched a field-leading five wins, including an all-genre top song and record prizes for multi-format hit “Need You Now,” during Sunday night’s 53rd annual Grammy Awards.

But the story of the evening was Lady Antebellum, the trio of Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood that has risen to dizzying heights less than three years after the release of its 2008 debut album.

Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs won the album of the year award, keeping Lady Antebellum from sweeping the major categories for which they were nominated. That did nothing to dampen the country group’s enthusiasm.

“It feels pretty surreal,” Kelley said after the show. “It feels like we’ve arrived, in a way.”

Scott stood in her high heels and considered her feet.

“The only way I know they’re on the ground is that they they’re really hurting from wearing these shoes.”Continue reading →

But now, it seems the 'Roo folks have given Plant's announcement their blessing. The Bonnaroo YouTube page just posted the above video, wherein Plant shares his memories of performing there in 2008, and says he's "going back again, if I can get that far on this tour."

Click to see a gallery of photos from Robert Plant and the Band of Joy's concert at War Memorial Auditorium (this image: Samuel M. Simpkins/The Tennessean).

Robert Plant and his Band of Joy played Nashville’s War Memorial Auditorium Tuesday evening, an occasion that found the pleased and engaged ex-Led Zeppelin frontman center stage, surrounded by a handful of Nashville’s most valued and inventive musicians.

Acclaimed Austin singer-songwriter Patty Griffin, who often performs and records in Music City, is the only non-Nashvillian in the Band of Joy. Guitar-wielding bandleader Buddy Miller, multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott and a rhythm section of bassist Byron House and drummer Marco Giovino round out the group. Griffin, Miller and Scott have their own solo careers, while Giovino and House are world-class players, established enough to pick and choose the gigs they take.

Plant was midway through “Tall Cool One,” a song from 1988’s Now and Zen album, with the Band of Joy providing a lesson in dynamics and synergy. A grinning Plant established eye contact with each player (especially Griffin, who danced in a shimmering dress to Plant’s left), making clear to musicians and audience alike that this night was not about approximating a Zeppelin show or about rock star poses or about anything other than the throb and sway of the musical moment.

Danny Barnes is, like Miller, Scott and Griffin, a solo artist who occasionally plays in others’ touring bands. Barnes recently wrote a blog entry titled “How To Play In Someone Else’s Band.” “Your number one job above all else is to make the leader sound good, look good and feel good,” he wrote, succinctly and correctly identifying a contributing musician’s ultimate purpose.

Tuesday, Robert Plant sounded good, looked good and felt good. He’s turned down staggering proceeds offered for a Zeppelin reunion in favor of what he feels is a more substantial reward: the ability to explore the music that fascinates him, which at the moment tends to be Americana sounds, rooted in folk and country.Continue reading →

Before being the title of his latest album and name of his Nashvillian-studded backing band, Band of Joy was the name of one of many short-lived groups that rock legend Robert Plant kicked around with in the mid-’60s before moving on to Led Zeppelin. (That one stuck.)

Another very successful project of Plant’s, of course, was Raising Sand, his Nashville-made, Grammy-garnering 2007 collaboration with Alison Krauss. And while Krauss doesn’t appear on Band of Joy (and the pair aborted work on a Sand follow-up), the album feels very much like Sand’s inspired victory lap.

For the new Band of Joy, Plant brings Nashville luminaries Buddy Miller, Byron House, Marco Giovino and Darrell Scott onboard, and finds a fantastic singing partner in Americana favorite Patty Griffin. Together, they’ve cooked up a covers-heavy collection (ranging from classic R&B tunes to a pair by indie-rockers Low) that preserves Sands’ rootsy appeal but adds a welcome dose of guts, grit and Plant’s trademark mysticism.

Paper Airplane is Krauss’ 14th album. Since her debut in 1985, she has sold more than 12 million albums and won 26 Grammy Awards, the most for any female artist of any genre. The new album is Krauss and Union Station’s first since 2004’s Lonely Runs Both Ways, and it is Krauss’ first since her Grammy-winning collaboration with Robert Plant, Raising Sand. The new, 11-song album includes the Richard Thompson-penned “Dimming of the Day” and the Peter Rowan composition “Dust Bowl Children.”

Union Station features multi-instrumentalists Dan Tyminski and Ron Block, bass player Barry Bales and Dobro great Jerry Douglas. Krauss and Union Station produced Paper Airplane, which was recorded in Nashville with engineer Mike Shipley.

Sure, we in Music City are downright spoiled with having the real Robert Plant regularly in our midst, but if you’re holding out for the wailing golden god of yesteryear, even we must turn to ZOSO.

Los Angeles-based Zeppelin tributists ZOSO have been doing this a long, lonely, lonely time — 16 years, to be exact — and while they each do a commendable job of mimicking their idols, it’s their spitting-image Bonzo that steals the show.

The band heads to Nashville on Thursday, Jan. 13 for an 8 p.m. show at Exit/In (2208 Elliston Place, 321-3340). Tickets are $10.

A Nashvillian, Miller spent much of 2010 leading Robert Plant's Band of Joy. He co-produced Plant's Grammy-nominated Band of Joy album, and he produced Griffin's Grammy-nominated Downtown Church. He and wife Julie Miller's Written in Chalk album won the Americana Music Association's album of the year award in 2009.